Understanding
by Stone Jackal
Summary: Simmons had always been in the lab; Ward preferred to work alone. Now assigned to a field team to investigate the weird and the unexplained, both agents are out of their depth.


**Author's Notes:**_Takes place after the events of **0-8-4**._

* * *

While the oh-eight-four had been launched, their misfit team had remained assembled, for the most part. May and Coulson had migrated to the far end of the cargo bay, talking quietly. Skye and Fitz still sat on the open 'tailgate' with their legs dangling over the edge, their debate complete with wild, descriptive hand gestures (Fitz) and awkwardly landing sarcasm (Skye). These two by two pairings left Simmons to her own devices for once, making Ward's absence all the more noticeable. Swallowing the last sip of her beer, she left the bottle in the collection of empties and exited the bay.

Ever since their shouting match in the lab and Coulson's matter of fact order to essentially _get it together_, Simmons had been set on a particular, if non-scientific, puzzle; Agent Grant Ward.

Agent Ward was a man of very few, usually terse words. He was uncomfortable with scientific types, with people in generally really. He had a particular dislike for Skye, or maybe the dislike was for what she stood for as a member of the Rising Tide. He and Agent May and Agent Coulson had developed some kind of rapport, probably because the three of them were field agents.

But they were a team now; hacker, scientists and field agents alike. This had led her to going looking for the surly specialist.

He wasn't in the cargo bay with the others. He wasn't in the cockpit, the lounge, the kitchen or any of the common areas. She peeked into his bunk to find it empty, even ducked into the lab, no matter how unlikely it was that he'd be in there.

Following the short corridor down from the lab, past the specimen containment section and their sad little holding cell, there was only one other room on this deck where he could be. Oddly enough, as she passed by the infirmary, she spotted the back of his head through the window in the door. The best she could tell, he was looking down, his back to the entrance. Nodding sharply just the once, she reached for the door handle.

"There you are!" Simmons announced as she pushed open the infirmary door, "What are you doing? You snuck off right after they let the slingshot loose."

"Uh," His head snapped around to find her standing behind him, both agent and scientist startled by her arrival and his appearance. Before entering the infirmary, Simmons hadn't noticed that Ward had taken his shirt off, his impressive (from a purely anatomical standpoint, of course) upper body bare and contorted awkwardly to his left, "I wasn't expecting there to be anybody else down here."

She snorted, stepping further into the room, "That much is obvious."

Ward shifted as she moved, keeping his left side from her view. And this attempt at concealment made Simmons all the more curious to see just _what_ he was concealing. Which was why she made a jump of a stride to cross the narrow room, and while he managed to turn in time to keep his left side angled away from her, he couldn't stop her from noticing the first aid kit open on the gurney next to him, a pile of blood smeared gauze and wipes beside it.

Scurrying across to him, her eyes going especially wide, Simmons demanded, "What are you _doing_?" She shooed his hands out of her way when he made to cover it up, and she bent to peer at the angry gash just above his left hip.

Not expecting – or comfortable with – her obvious concern, Ward tried to change her focus, "It's nothing."

"That is _not_ nothing," She scolded seriously, her hands cool as each landed lightly on his skin at either side of the wound, "This is – how – did you get shot?" The biochemist's eyes flew up to find the specialist with a guilty grimace on his face, "Why didn't you say anything?"

Ward shrugged, his discomfort with the entire situation evident as he tried to step out of her reach, only to find himself boxed in by the gurney and a collection of metal cabinets. Trapped, he insisted, "It wasn't a big deal."

Simmons' frown grew deeper, lining her brow as she crowded him into the corner he'd made for himself, looking from his injured side to the dubious expression on his face, "Bullet wounds are a big deal Agent Ward," Backing away just the few, necessary steps, she grabbed a pair of surgical gloves from the first aid kit and pointed her index finger towards the gurney, "Sit."

He stared at her, startled, as she snapped the gloves over her hands, clearly wanting to argue with the very picture of a mad scientist before him. But each time he opened his mouth to try, Simmons interrupted with that pointed finger and a sharp, "_Ack_, no. Sit_. Now_."

Grumbling aloud, Ward eventually relented, though his frustration showed in his entire form. Turning his back to the gurney, he planted a hand on it beside each of his hips and used only that grip to lift himself up to sit next to the kit.

"See?" Simmons chirped, "Was that so difficult?"

Instead of a reply, he sighed audibly. Leaning forward again, Simmons rolled her eyes, beginning to carefully clean away the dried blood on his side. She tried to keep her touch light, and though his muscles (quite lovely ones, really) were tensely held, she couldn't see an indication of pain or discomfort, besides his most obvious annoyance. The two of them went on in an uncomfortable silence as she worked; the only sounds their combined breathing. Simmons, unable to stay that way, soon began to talk to fill up the quiet.

"This had to have happened in Peru," She concluded, "Before or after you threw yourself down the temple stairs? How could you not have said something about this? Are you aware of the possible outcomes if this was to become infected?"

Ward actually opened his mouth to answer that one, but she plowed on unknowingly, nabbing another antiseptic pad,

"And then being dragged around by the Peruvian meatheads, tossed and tied in the cargo bay," She paused then, gasping as her head jerked up to look him in the face, "Fitz and I hit you with someone, in the middle of that whole mess."

"Simmons," Ward tried to catch her runaway rant, but her eyes narrowed on his next word, "It's."

"Tell me again how this isn't a big deal Agent Ward."

Her tone was akin to _go ahead, I dare you_, and wisely, Ward chose to stop talking. Eyes still glaring, Simmons went back to her work on his wound, the two of them falling quiet again. This time though, it was bizarrely less tense than before. Moments later, she dropped the used wipe into the pile of garbage and reached into the kit for a tube of antibacterial cream. Slowly turning open the cap, Simmons asked,

"Is this some kind of macho, masking your pain to appear more masculine thing?" Between smearing a liberal amount of the cream gingerly over the wound, she peeked up at him. When his brow furrowed, she shrugged, "Skye might have mentioned something."

"Course she did," Ward muttered, still annoyed. Simmons gave him a tight lipped smile, backing away just a bit. Peeling off each of the gloves, she tossed them both into the bin and glanced back over her shoulder, catching him starting to move.

"Stay," She ordered simply, reaching for another set of gloves from the freshly opened box next to the sink, "I'm not done with you yet."

Ward settled back onto the gurney as directed, his expression lightening a little as the right corner of his lips quirked upward, just a bit. Waiting as she crossed back to him, something seemed to occur to him, and he asked, "Were you looking for me?"

"Pardon?" Simmons returned to stand in front of the gurney, wearing only one glove as she rummaged through the first aid kit.

"When you first got here, you said I snuck off," He reminded her, waiting still as she dug out a roll of medical tape and another of gauze, "Thought maybe you needed something."

"Well," Now her earlier intention felt silly, and she avoided his gaze as she laid the supplies out in a line on the gurney beside his thigh.

"Well?" He repeated, only his a question and hers avoidance.

Picking the scissors from the kit and reaching again for the roll of gauze, Simmons admitted quietly, "I was actually looking for you."

"Okay," He started, but when no explanation was forthcoming, he prompted from the scientist, "What did you need?"

She didn't answer at first, focusing instead on unrolling a length of the gauze and snipping it free with the scissors. Ward tried again, lightly tapping two crooked fingers to her shoulder, "Simmons?"

"I wanted to apologize," Simmons cut another strip of gauze before replacing both the roll and the scissors back in the kit.

"For the Peruvian?" Confused, he peered down at the top of her head.

"Not exactly," That pursed lip smile was back for a second before Simmons busied herself with his bandage, "Fitz and I, we both are so used to being in the lab. We talk at an extraordinary speed about fantastical, sometimes theoretical, things and we both forget that if the person listening doesn't have the training in the discipline that we do, then our prattle won't make the slightest bit of sense for them," Her eyes focused on her task still, she tore off a piece of the tape and pressed it over both the edge of the bandage and his skin, "Perhaps we weren't ready to be released into the wild just yet."

Ward snickered at that, finding a real, warm smile aimed up at him.

"We're a team," Simmons said decidedly, and not exactly sure of her point, Ward nodded along, "All the pieces are different, but important."

"Yeah," He agreed as she went back to affixing the bandage to his side.

"How can we expect you to try and understand our positions, if we don't try to understand yours?" She finally explained simply, smoothing the last piece of tape along the gauze pad and his side.

Ward wasn't sure what he had expected her to say, but that wasn't it. He found himself staring again at the top of her head as she finished taping off his bandage.

"All set," She pronounced finally, giving a final pat to his ribs before stepping off to the side. She scooped up the pile of used wipes, wrappers and gauze from the gurney, crossing the cramped room and dumping it into the bin beneath the sink. Ward reached back, picking up his shirt from where he'd tossed it upon arriving earlier in the infirmary, and pulled it over his head.

"You'll need to keep that bandage clean and dry," Simmons instructed as she peeled off the surgical gloves and chucked those too into the bin. Turning on the tap with her elbow, she pumped a good deal of soap into her hands before dunking them under the stream of water in the sink, "Though I'm certain you've had these instructions before, it bears repeating."

"Noted," Ward replied dryly as he slid off the gurney and took the few steps to stand just behind her, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," She grinned over her shoulder at him and turned off the faucet. Drying her hands on paper towel from the dispenser beside the sink, she turned back to him to tease lightly, "Next time, just tell me and we can get you patched up without having to play hide and seek."

He let go of the usual control and let the smile show on his face, "So you want me to find you then?"

Simmons shrugged once, before going to the door. She paused in the middle of passing through it, that smile creating a spark in her eyes, "It would be your turn."

And with that she slipped out of the door, leaving Ward alone in the infirmary again, snickering to himself.


End file.
